Desire
by TimoftheFools
Summary: This is the first part of a story based on the twilight series. It is the story of a vampire who has the ability to sense desires and information associated with desires. He encounters the Cullen family and decides to try this "love" thing.


Desire

Chapter One: Memory

It was time to leave the water.

After being under the arctic ice for the past one hundred years and I was looking forward to seeing how much the world had changed.

I didn't know if my century as a recluse had accomplished what I hoped but I would know soon.

I chose Port Angeles as my point of reentry onto the dry world because that had been the place I entered the water. Port Angeles is a lovely town on the north edge of the Olympic Peninsula. It has mountains in the background, water in the foreground, and Victoria (Canada) just across the water.

There were several large ships in the harbor. I examined their underbellies as I swam past and wondered about the technological advances that could have happened in the years I had been hiding. I had been a vampire for a little over two thousand years and the last century had shown a drastic increase in technological advance. I supposed it would take a lot of time and work to catch up.

How exciting!

I loved being a vampire but I struggled with the boredom. There was just so much time!

I had been a gladiator when I was turned. I had been the best. The Romans had shipped my mother south from Britain and the one who bought her had given her to his favorite gladiator. He was a Visigoth and my mother had told me he had been a legend. Only six and a half feet tall he had wielded an ax as tall as he was and cut many opponents in half with just one blow.

He had died soon after fathering me.

I had been groomed to follow in my father's profession and been the best. My weapons had been a six foot claymore and a dagger with a one foot long blade. I wielded the claymore one handed as long as I was holding the dagger but the dagger had killed many more than the longer blade. It was balanced for throwing and I almost never missed.

When I was thirty I found myself in the possession of a strange pale person with dark red eyes. He had purchased me for more interesting sport.

He took me to a small island off the coast of Italy and that night I met a cold, beautiful, pale woman who kissed me then bit me and set me on fire. Not literal fire but the venom burned through my body for three days and hurt more than I could ever begin to describe. I spent every second of those three eternal days cursing my mother, father, and the day I was born for making that pain possible.

Once the pain finally passed I was left with a burning thirst and a towering hatred of all things. I was left with more than that though. All my senses were heightened to an extraordinary degree and every moment felt magical. Lost in the wonder of the smells that surrounded me I sat in the grove of trees where I had been left to suffer the change of my transformation. After a while I noticed the trees were broken and chunks of ground had been tossed hither and yon by my thrashing. At least I had suspected my thrashing but who had broken the trees? I had grabbed a stump just to remind myself it was solid and I accidentally ripped it out of the ground.

I was dreaming. That was what I concluded because the senses and the strength I had were impossible. However, the pain had been impossible too and the thirst was driving me out of my mind. I found a stream of water but, despite my thirst the water smelled wretched. I drank some just to try to quench the fire in my throat but immediately vomited. Water was not the solution.

I decided to simply accept the dream. What else could I do? Instead of trying to wake up I would take out my fury and pain on whatever I could find in the dream.

At this point six people appeared out of the mists.

"He is awake," said a tall, dark haired woman with wary concern. I did not get the impression the concern was for me. Instead, I had the impression that . . . .

I had a lot of impressions!

She wanted to get me to a deep pit on the north side of the island. The four huge males who looked at me as if I was poisonous simply did not want to die. I hot the further impression that they thought I could kill them easily if they weren't careful. The little one, he seemed to be around thirteen, wanted to eat some girl who had been brought to the island this morning.

He wanted to _eat_ her? No, more accurately he wanted to drink her blood. I stared at him and horror began to build as I realized that all of these people wanted to drink the blood of people. Additionally, I felt through this strange sense that they thought themselves different from normal people and far superior. Next, I sensed that I wanted to drink blood too. The desire suddenly raged through me and from my strange extra sense I seemed to feel an echo of the desire in myself.

From the boy's desire I knew where the girl was and I bounded in her direction suddenly oblivious of the six people.

Then I fell to the ground.

"Carry him to the pit." What had happened? Why didn't my arms and legs work anymore? "Mathus, keep him immobile till we are ready."

So someone was doing this to me!

The four large people picked me up by my limbs and carried me north. One got too close and I ripped a chunk out of his leg. He yelled and dropped me which brought me close to the foot of the one holding my other arm so I bit off two of his toes. I was thrashing my body even though I could not move my limbs and all four were suddenly several yards away.

"Pick him up again, carefully!" In a coordinated motion they swooped in and had my by the limbs again but this time they had me fully extended so my teeth could not reach them. "Mathus, get the toes. Villanus may have them back when we deliver the newborn."

Was I the newborn? How could they call me that? I was thirty years old!

I tried to use this new ability of mine to get more information from her mind. Dreams are so odd. However, all I could sense were her desires. She wanted to get me to the pit; she wanted me to fight some other person with bright red eyes. She wanted me to win because she had wagered a great deal of money on me and she wanted to see me fight. This desire was accompanied by memories of me fighting in Rome and she wanted to see how much stronger I was. This was all very strange. It seemed I could only sense desires and the reasoning and emotions that accompanied them.

We were at the pit. It looked like it had once been an amphitheater but had been subsequently destroyed. Suddenly, I smelled a scent so maddeningly delicious that I thrashed my body trying to escape my captors. They seemed ready this time.

I looked around for the source of the scent but could not see anything specific that could be fiving off the scent. However, it seemed to coming from the direction of a small building to the west.

"Bring him to me."

The four dragged me to a dais overlooking the pit where a person with strange looking skin and an ageless look in his eyes looked into mine.

"This will be a good battle," he said. "I have never sensed such fury."

So I was mad. Who wouldn't be in my situation?

"The winner will be given the human. The loser will be given to the flames. Have all wagers been made?"

There were several grunts of affirmation.

He looked at me again. "You bonds will be loosed now. Fight no one except the vampire in the pit. If you win you will be given the human. If you try to get him before you kill the other vampire we will kill you first.

Other vampire? I was fighting a vampire? He seemed to imply I was a vampire too. Some of the slaves had told me about vampires but the reality was far more terrifying than the concept. These were the monsters out of legend but now I was one too. Deep in my soul I resolved that they would fear the monster they had created.

Chapter Two: Exit

It was a few hours before dawn when I took my first steps onto land in one hundred years.

Standing in front of me was a tiny, beautiful vampire. She stared into my eyes with a strange mixture of fear and confidence but I didn't notice for the second it took to recover from the shock of seeing her _here_! Had she been waiting for me?

She handed me a bag. "Here are some clothes." _She had been waiting for me!_ "My name is Alice Cullen."

"Call me Luke." I chose the name a couple centuries before because it was more common in Europe than my original name: Lucca. Slaves had no last name and I had never taken one. The humans who managed my finances knew me as the Duke of Lucca and never questioned the name. I discouraged questions from humans.

I would have to check with them soon. Right after I killed this strange little vampire.

I loved killing vampires.

"I would win."

What?

"What?"

"If we fight I will win." She said it with such utter confidence I almost believed her. However, I could sense no desire to kill me. That sense had kept me alive for the two thousand years after I had been turned. My habit of picking fights with vampires had made me many enemies who did not want to be my next prey. They had sent many who had special abilities. Many who could easily kill me in a fair fight.

I never gave them a fair fight. I could sense the desire to kill me and with it the plan of how it would be done. This knowledge gave me the upper hand and I had never been beaten. I was the most deadly vampire in the world.

Or so I had thought but this tiny beautiful female with her strangely spiky hair and musical voice seemed very confident in her abilities.

I searched her desires.

She wanted to be with Jasper. I saw a vampire covered with a mosaic of scars. This one could fight! Venom started to flow as my desire for a good fight grew. It had been a century since I had fought and I missed it more than I missed human blood. Of course that was probably because I had eaten a baby killer whale an hour ago and I was gorged.

"I would kill you first."

What?

"What?"

"If you try to kill Jasper I will kill you before you can."

What was with this crazy little vampire? What made her so confident?

My curiosity had always been the one force that could counter my fighting spirit.

I searched her desires again. She wanted to be with her newborn vampire friend Bella.

The motivation was strange. I understood her desire to be with her mate because I had sensed it before. What was this other emotion though? The one that bound her to her . . . . friend?

I sensed something strange about this desire. There was a human face superimposed on the vampire one.

What?

She wasn't a vampire yet. How was the vision of the vampire so real then? And how could she be friends with a human?

So intriguing.

"Can you see the future?"

That was the one potential ability I feared but I had never met a vampire who had it.

"Yes."

I knew it was true. I could tell a lie by the desire others had for it to be believed. There was no such desire in this one. Usually when someone tried to convince me of the truth there was the desire for the truth to be believed. This time, there was nothing.

She knew I would believe her.

"I believe you."

"I knew you would."

She smiled impishly and I couldn't help smiling myself.

"Why are your eyes yellow?" I asked. "The only other vampire with yellow eyes that I have met was one named Carlisle. He visited the Volturi a while back when I was with them."

She pulled a mirror from her pocket. "The color is more like amber and your eyes are just as amber as mine."

I looked into the mirror. She was right, they were yellow; or amber as she called the color.

"My eyes have never been this color." I stared at her suspiciously. "Did you do something to me?"

"No, but I have followed the path of Carlisle from my birth." Of course her birth meant her turning. I sensed her desire to know her life before her turning but somehow her human years were dark to her. Very strange.

"And now I am on this 'Path of Carlisle?'"

"You have not fed on human blood in a long time."

_That's_ why my eyes are yellow?

"Ah, I will remedy that soon!" Due to circumstances outside my control human blood had lost its flavor. My time under the ice had been an effort to regain the joy of feeding.

Wait! She didn't feed on humans? Right, that had been the strange philosophy of Carlisle. We had all thought he was crazy.

"Please don't feed on any humans from this area. We have a semi-permanent home here and a vampire feeding would make trouble." She spoke with surprise and disappointment evident in her tone.

_Disappointment_?

"You seem disappointed."

"When I saw your eyes in the future I thought you were like us."

I sensed her desire for me to be like her and Carlisle and . . . . . five vampire faces and one human-now/vampire-soon face flashed through her mind. I had often wished I could see more than just the thoughts and images associated with desires.

"There are seven of you who don't eat humans?"

"And more." Five more vampire faces flashed through her mind. Her feelings for these were much weaker.

I still sensed in her the desire for me to become part of her family. In conjunction with this desire was an image of the future where I actually was a 'vegetarian.'

I chuckled at the term.

Now she wanted me to meet Carlisle. More than that, she wanted someone named Edward to meet _me_. She wanted him to . . . . _read my mind_?

"You want Edward to read my mind?"

"How do you do that? I have been thinking at you but you never answer my thoughts like Edward does so you can't read my mind directly but somehow you are in my head."

Oddly, I did not sense that she wanted me out. I guess she was used to having someone in her mind. Maybe she liked it.

I would put no strangeness beyond this weird family of vampires.

"Good, you're coming."

I was?

I was. It seemed my curiosity had gotten the better of me.

Chapter 3: 'Car'

She lead me to an amazing, sleek, yellow automobile with the word 'Porsche' written on the back in delicate lettering. It seems I had missed a lot. This was very good news. The next few decades would _not_ be boring.

"Where can I find a telephone?" Some fellow by the name of 'Bell' had developed an improvement on the a couple decades before I had left land and I hoped I could use it to contact my accountant. Of course the one I had spoken to last would be dead by now but his family had been managing my estate for centuries.

"I have one here." She pulled out a small device which glowed somehow. "Who do you want to call?"

"My estate. I am pleased to see that Bell's invention has been improved so much. How would I go about contacting them? I would like some money and one of these automobiles."

We were on the road now going faster than I had ever seen an automobile go.

"We call them 'cars' here and just tell me the name of the firm managing your estate."

I told her and she used her knee to steer while she typed furiously on the tiny keyboard on her device. I was surprised even a vampire could stay on the road at the speeds we were going without looking but then I remembered she could see the future. Of course she had no need to use her eyes to 'see.'

She pressed a button and handed me the device. I picked up the word 'phone' out of her mind related to a random desire for some new model of phone she wanted.

"Lieber and sons financial, how may I help you?"

"This is Lucca."

The male voice on the other end made a small startled noise. Then, in the competent and respectful tone I prized from his family he answered, "Welcome back sir. How may we help you?" Obviously the entire firm was immediately at my disposal.

"I require the standard package delivered to me in Port Angeles Washington as soon as possible."

"It will be there in less than twelve hours sir."

Twelve hours! Technology certainly had improved!

As I handed back the phone Alice asked, "Standard package?"

"Everything I might need after an extended voyage. They think they are serving a series of heirs and every few years I demand the finest clothing, transportation, and ample funds. I have never been disappointed."

I periodically sent the estate money or valuables I found in my travels and often information which was even more valuable. Over the past fifteen centuries we had gotten very good at working together. I hated managing money. It was far more tedious than the acquisition or the spending of the funds but necessary. In return for managing my funds the Lieber family had experienced fifteen centuries off wealth and stability; a mutually beneficial relationship to say the least.

She eyed me speculatively. "So you get along with humans?"

"Sure, what vampire would want to be my accountant?"

She smiled and we were there.

Chapter Four: Family

Alice jumped out of the car. "Come on! I want you to meet my family!"

I sensed no desire to lead me into a trap and no desire to kill me from inside so I followed her willingly. Inside, around a large dinner table, sat the Cullen family. I remembered Carlisle from when he had visited the Volturi a few centuries ago. I sampled the desired that surrounded me and found them amazingly pleasant.

When I was in a group the desires I sensed always melted together into a symphony of thoughts and feelings. I enjoyed some desires more than others and throughout my life I had fed mostly on those humans with the uglier minds. They marred the music and silenced the more beautiful voices. For some reason, the harmony of desires in this room was the most pleasant I had ever encountered. I sensed a difference in myself too.

Next to Carlisle on the opposite side of the table as me the youngest looking vampire nodded to himself when I thought about feeding on those with the darkest desires. So this must be Edward. I examined his desires.

He wanted to be with the human Bella. More than anything that desire overpowered the others. However, she was with her father tonight and Alice said he would be needed here tonight. How intriguing. What was this feeling he felt for her. He wanted to be in her presence but it was more than that. It was a hunger but it could not be satisfied by eating her.

The desire to eat her started to flare up at my thought but was immediately stifled. There was more here than I could immediately grasp but he was hiding his desires well.

"It's called 'Love.' The feeling you sense in me is called love. That is why I want to be with her so much."

He was Edward the mind reader of course. He nodded at my realization.

Carlisle spoke up. "Welcome to our home. I am Carlisle and this is my wife, Esme." He gestured to a beautiful vampire with the most beautiful desires of any person I had ever met. This amazing 'Love' filled every desire I could sense. I would have to learn more about it. The happiness that accompanied the feeling made the place where my unbeating heart was ache with a strange longing.

"I remember you Carlisle, from your time with the Volturi." I turned to Esme, "You have a beautiful soul Esme."

Edward started at the word soul.

Carlisle continued with the introductions, "You have already met Alice and this is her mate, Jasper."

I looked at the deadly, scarred vampire and bowed. He smiled at me. "I sense you find something funny."

It seemed this whole family was gifted.

Edward responded to my thought, "Just the three of us have unique senses."

Well good, no more surprises.

To answer Jasper I said, "Alice told me she would kill me before I killed you."

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow but again Edward spoke up. "Do you remember the name Lucca, Carlisle?" He looked at me a bit startled as if he knew the name but had never known my face. Concern colored all their desires except Alice and Edward who seemed to know that nothing bad was going to happen.

She must be looking at the future and he must be seeing it in her mind. He smiled and said, "He does not seem to be the killing machine that was described to you father. His mind is full of curiosity and he seems to have accepted the fact that Alice can kill him before he can kill any of us."

I appreciated the openness he made possible. Many covens would attack the moment they heard my name out of the justified fear that I was looking for sport. However, this was a bit annoying at the same time.

"Does anyone else find that irritating?" I grinned ruefully. There doesn't seem to be any privacy around here.

A massively muscled vampire sitting next to the most beautiful female I had ever seen both laughed in unison. His laugh was a loud guffaw full of joy and warmth. Hers was less friendly.

"Allow me to introduce Rosalie and Emmet." Carlisle's face was full of pride and that strange love emotion.

I bowed at the last two vampires to be introduced, "Pleased to meet you." I was more pleased to meet Emmet than Rosalie. His desires were pure and honest. Furthermore, he wanted to test his strength against me which mirrored my own desires perfectly.

"He cheats," Edward said. "He can sense desires and the thoughts and feelings associated with them."

"Still fairer than fighting you," he said clearly wishing he could fight Edward with his powers turned off. "How would that help in battle? He would already know I want to win."

I grinned internally. My method of fighting involved knowing what actions they wanted me to make. Associated with that desire would be the move they would make in response so I would set them up my doing what they wanted but counter their move. It usually only took a couple seconds to kill most opponents.

"His strategy is sort of a combination of Alice and me. He knows what you want him to do and why so he sets you up and essentially knows the future because he knows what you will do."

That was really annoying.

Jasper spoke up, "Alice, how are you so sure you can beat him? It sounds more like a fair fight." His concern for her safety was clear in his voice and desires.

"I don't fight with desires. I just respond to what he will do. That makes him effectively blind in a fight."

I nodded. That made sense. It seemed that I would not be killing any of these vampires after all. Besides, I usually hunted vampires out of boredom and the next few years would not be boring. I needed to learn about the scientific and technological progress made over the last hundred years.

Additionally, this love concept intrigued me. This family was full of the strange happiness I hungered for every time I sensed it. I wanted love.

Whatever that was.

Chapter Five: Explanations

"Where have you been for the last hundred years?"

Memories flashed though my mind: Swimming in the cool darkness, years of contemplation on the futility and emptiness of my life and the hope that life would be different when I left the darkness.

And of course, many unsatisfactory meals.

Knowing I did not want to explain, Edward described my dark existence in the shadow of the ice. One hundred years under the ice.

The whole family looked more and more shocked as Edward finished his explanation. "One hundred years!" Esme exclaimed, her desires full of the need to comfort me. "What drove you to do it?"

The memories flashed through my head again and suddenly Edward looked furious.

The fury in his eyes shocked me but combined with his fury was a strange exultation. I saw in his desires that he knew himself to be far stronger than me and he wanted me to know it. He wanted to rub my face in it. Everyone in the room was shocked at his reaction including me.

"La tua cantante," he said. Memories washed over me again and he said them aloud. "You all know what this means." They all nodded. It meant the blood that sings. It meant the blood of a person who tasted thousands of times more delicious than normal human blood. It meant an irresistible desire to kill and eat the object of one's desire which cannot be stopped or slowed by the rational mind.

Edward looked at me again with the look that said he had conquered something that had beaten me.

"Lucca, Luke I guess," he picked the name I wanted to be called out of my mind, "met, and killed, three of those in one month."

Emmet looked startled and slightly envious for a moment before squashing that desire. Comprehension began to dawn on his face. It seems this one had known the taste of la tua cantante.

"Normal human blood lost all taste for me." I didn't know why I was explaining but it seemed natural with this family. "It seemed no better than animal blood. I scoured the globe looking for that taste again but never found it. I lost all interest in anything else. It was just too much too fast and I fell into a deep depression. Then I figured I should just leave everything I knew and just be by myself till it passed. I had always loved swimming so I went into the water. I fed on animals and didn't mind because compared to the taste of la tua cantante human and animal taste pretty much the same. I hope now that time has passed human will taste as good as it once did."

The table was silent. No one looked supportive except maybe Carlisle who seemed to have compassion even when he disagreed. Suddenly I noticed something that had been nagging at the back of my mind from the moment I entered the room. Normal vampires have, at all times, the desire for human blood. It is always near the front of a vampire's desires and it made the sound of vampire desires annoying to me. I enjoyed silencing their minds. However, this family did not have that annoying, discordant, desire at the front of their minds. There was a muted thirst in each of them but the thirst was . . . . . quiet. It its place was this . . . . . love . . . . . that made so little sense.

Suddenly, Edward spoke up. "You want to love? You want to have what we have?"

I nodded. I wanted this happiness and harmony. I felt I had been longing for it for the past two thousand years without knowing it. Yes. I said in my mind because he was there anyway.

"Based on what you just described about our desires and normal vampire desires," everyone looked confused but he didn't slow, "to have the kind of love we have and you want, I think you have to have our diet. I don't think you can have one without the other."

Jasper was looking at Edward intently.

"Yes Jazz, I have sensed a change in you the longer you have been a vegetarian. You have been happier and happier. You enjoy our presence more every day you don't eat human.

Jasper hoped it was true. He was pleased that he was making progress even though he was struggling. I sensed his hunger for human blood, while quieter than all the other vampire minds I had met, was louder than the rest of those in this room.

I looked at Edward and shrugged. "I am willing to try."

All eyes went to Edward and when he smiled, so did they. In their eyes I could already tell I was one of them.

Chapter Six: Bella

"He has to go," Alice said confidently. "Right after he meets Bella." She smiled and I heard the front door open. "He will have to find his own way."

She grew a huge smile and Edward began to grin as well.

"That is so annoying! Spit it out already!"

Edward ignored Emmet's outburst and asked Alice, "Is it that sure?"

She answered, "If he leaves in an hour he is extremely likely to find love." She turned to me. "She will be a human."

She giggled at my shocked expression as a new voice directly behind me as suspiciously, "Who will be human?"

I jumped out of my seat and spun around. No one had snuck up behind me in two thousand years. I always sensed anyone's desires before they got close. Who was this person who had managed the impossible?

"You rely too much on that other sense. You heard her footsteps didn't you?" Edward's mocking smile lasted only a second and then it was replaced by the adoring look he gave the person who had startled me so badly.

I had heard her footsteps. I was still so used to ignoring humans that I hadn't been paying attention. Additionally the conversation had been commanding almost all of my attention.

Alice's musical voice made the introductions. "Bella, this is Luke. Luke, Bella."

I bowed automatically but I was instantly struck by her haunting brown eyes. Odd, the impact of the smell of her was all but lost in the utterly unprecedented peace in those eyes. She seemed to feel safe and at home in this house full of vampires and they all seemed to feel the same about her. However, more striking was the combination of eyes that spoke volumes and a mind that was silent.

Intriguing.


End file.
